May Day a National Holiday

The écluses are all closed for May Day. While they are rioting in Paris Julie and I decide to bicycle to Semur-en-Auxois to see if anything is open. This trip we are leaving from Marigny-le-Cahouët and using the bicycle route. Wonderful road that is nearly flat and the last few kilometers into town are on a dedicated bicycle trail that parallels the road, just as it get busy.

Why I never get tired of cycling in France. This is the road we took to and from Semur and this is about how many cars you'd ever see at a time. No pot-holes, no chipseal, just smooth riding.

Semur-en-Auxois had many businesses open so we were able to window shop and then use the map we had received when Joan and I toured the town to show Julie the sights. Semur became the stronghold of the duchy in the 14C when the citadel was reinforced by ramparts and 18 towers. Today there are still four towers and much of the old ramparts left to explore. While the towers are closed the town is still like stepping back in time.

Collégiale Notre-Dame

The show piece of the town is the Collégiale Notre-Dame a church that was started in the 11C and rebuilt and remodeled and added to throughout the years. There are still parts that go back to the 13C. Like so many places in France there is a chapel in the Notre-Dame dedicated to the US soldiers of the 310^th infantry that gave their lives to help preserve the freedom of France in the Great War. We often forget how much we are appreciated for what we have contributed to the world. It’s always a touching reminder to see how much our sacrifices continue to mean to others.

Semur-en-Auxois from the river - tower and some of town ramparts visible

Chapel dedicated In Memory of US troops of the 310 Infantry in WWI that died protecting France

Our ride back took a little detour to explore Lac Pont which turned out to be one of the feeder reservoirs for the canal de Bourgogne, as well as a lake for general recreation.

A copy of our chart showing just how close the locks are together for this stretch

Wednesday we continued our climb with 13 more écluse to the port of Pont Royal. Good fortune was with us when our eclusier chose to keep working when 12:00 came around to allow us to complete our day before he took lunch.

Entrance to Saint Thibault - doors and entrance from 14C

13C St. Thibault

We’d seen the town of of Thibault in our chart book but then checked our Michelin guide and found the church there had quite a history. Jumped on our bikes for a quick 5Km to see this 12C church that has been the resting place for Saint Thibault’s relics since the 1200s and rebuilt and reconditioned many times over the centuries.

The canal as it looks from this part of our voyage.

On Our Way Back – As Slow as Possible

Having decided to return Juniper to her home port of Saint Jean de Losne to have her winter repairs, repaired. Since we are no longer behind schedule we are now taking the time to fully smell the roses, even if they are soaking wet.

Our first day we returned to Venarey les Laumes, a nice port with power and water. The power is really important since the temperatures have dropped back into the 30s at night and only making the high 40s to low 50s during the day. With power, we can run our heater.

14th Century - Château Bussy-Rabutin. From medieval residence to Renaissance château

Antechamber - walls covered  with damask (the red & gold fabric covering the walls) and decorated with furniture from the Régence Period

The Hall of the Great Warriors - featuring 65 portraits of French and foreign military figures. Many of the rooms were similarly covered with paintings, just different topics.

Julie in the garden maze

With rain scheduled for the afternoon we set off on our bikes by 9:00 to bicycle to Château Bussy-Rabutin a beautiful building started in the 1300s. The Château as it looks today is probably representative of how it looked in the 1800s. After touring the Château we set out to explore the gardens and maze. While outside the predicted rain began and we decided a nice warm cup of coffee or food sounded better than getting soaked. As the ride was primarily uphill going to, it was a much faster ride back to town.

In town we had, of all things, a hamburger with of course pom frits. Then it was off to the MuséoParc  Alésia. The museum was inside, warm, dry and a perfect place to learn about the battle between Julius Caeser and the tribal Gauls united by the leader Vercingétorix. Even with the arrival of a rescue army of over 250,000 the Roman defeat of the Gauls in this important battle allowed the Romans to include Gaul in the Roman Empire. The museum covered the story as well the archeological work that has been done to verify what really happened.

Recreations of the Roman battlements built to siege the Gaul's fortified hilltop

Very wet bikers

Even after stalling all day, the rain outlasted us and we ended up riding back to the boat, including a super marché stop, in very wet weather.

Sunday was a short day, only ten écluse and a distance of about 5km. Once again it was time to get the bikes down for a ride to a nearby medieval city, this time Flavigny-sur-Ozerain home of les Anis de Flavigny the aniseed sweets that have been made at the old abbey for over 100 years. The building itself many years older yet. The ride to  Flavigny had a 3km long climb to the ridge and we were bucking a strong headwind to help us burn a few more calories.

Fields line the road to Flavigny-sur-Ozerain

The medieval walled town to Flavigny-sur-Ozerain.

You might recognize this logo
for the anis flavored candy.

Monday was our work day – the beginning of our staircase. Today was 17 écluse in 6km. We showed up at our appointed 9am time only to find an empty écluse. 9:15, still empty, finally about 9:30 our first èclusier arrived and we got underway. A couple of locks later our second èclusier arrived and it was game on. We were averaging about 10 minutes per écluse, including the time to move from one to another. The two young keepers were opening the valves to the locks all the way, right from the start, giving us quite a ride and filling the chamber in record time. We’d no sooner leave a lock and they would be zooming past us and have the next one ready. Before our lines were on the lower doors were shut and sometimes the water would be entering. To go along with this hurried pace we had a 20mph wind blowing – this meant coming into each écluse fairly fast to maintain steerage and at quite an angle, straightening out and slowing down once you were partially in the chamber and somewhat protected from the wind. Julie got real good at snagging the first bollard as we motored  past it, still slowing down.

Arriving back in Marigny-le-Cahouët (the town we found the lovely château on our way out) we spent the afternoon again walking to the château then walked through the outskirts of this very old village.